Academic Staff

Professor Pamela Clemit

Professor in the Department of English Studies

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 42563

Fax: +44 (0) 191 33 42501

Room number: Hallgarth House

Contact Professor Pamela Clemit (email at p.a.clemit@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Pamela Clemit is Professor of English Studies at Durham University and a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of English, University of Oxford. She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she also took her BA and M. Phil. She is a Fellow of the English Association. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and a founder member and Durham co-ordinator of the North East Forum in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Studies.

Professor Clemit is a specialist in English literature and its intellectual, social, and political contexts, 1780-1830. Her main research interests are in the Godwin-Shelley family of writers (Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Mary Shelley, and Percy Bysshe Shelley) and their associates (e.g. Elizabeth Inchbald, Charlotte Smith); the 1790s; biography, autobiography, and letters of the Romantic period; and the political novel. Her most recent books are The Letters of William Godwin, Volume I: 1778-1797 (OUP, 2011), The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the 1790s (CUP, 2011), and an edition of William Godwin's Caleb Williams (Oxford World's Classics, 2009). She is the author of The Godwinian Novel (OUP, 1993) and has published a dozen or so critical and scholarly editions of William Godwin's and Mary Shelley's writings.

Her principal research project is a scholarly edition of William Godwin's letters for Oxford University Press (6 vols.), of which she is the General Editor and the Editor of Volumes I and II. Other work in progress includes an essay on letters and journals in the Romantic period.

Professor Clemit's research awards include, most recently, a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2007-2010), and two MHRA Research Associateships (2007-2008, 2009-2010). In 1999-2000 she was a member of the inaugural class of Fellows at the New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers (directed by the distinguished historian Peter Gay). She has also been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford; Harris Manchester College, Oxford; and Wadham College, Oxford.

Professor Clemit has supervised postgraduate research on a variety of topics, e.g. indeterminacy in Shelley's poetry; Shelley's idea of nature; the presentation of masculine experience in the English Gothic novel; representations of Gothic abbey architecture in Radcliffe, Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron; William Godwin and the theatre; Thomas Hardy's novels. She welcomes enquiries from potential postgraduate students in any of her fields of interest, broadly conceived.

Research Groups

Editing, Bibliography and History of the Book
Romantic and Pre-Romantic Studies

Research Interests

English literature and its intellectual, social, and political contexts
The Godwin-Shelley family of writers (Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley)
The 1790s
Biography, autobiography, letters, and journals of the Romantic period
The political novel
Editing and editorial theory

Publications

Articles: magazine

Clemit, Pamela. (2007). 'Enlightened Romantic'. Oxford Today 19(1): 27-28.
Clemit, Pamela. (2002). 'Extremely Subtle: Two Newly Discovered Pamphlets by William Godwin'. Times Literary Supplement 5197: 17-18.

Articles: review

Clemit, Pamela. (2002). 'The Different Faces of Mary Wollstonecraft'. Enlightenment and Dissent 21: 163-169.

Book chapters: online

Clemit, Pamela. (2002). 'Writing a Revolutionary Life: Godwin's Memoirs of Wollstonecraft'. In Chamber Music: The Life-Writing of William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, and Mary Shelley. Luria Walker, Gina. Romantic Circles: University of Maryland.

Books: authored

Clemit, Pamela. (2011). The Letters of William Godwin, Volume 1: 1778-1797. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clemit, Pamela & Markley, A.A. (2002). 'Life of William Godwin', Poems, Uncollected Prose, Translations, Part-Authored and Attributed Writings. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela & Walker, Gina Luria. (2001). Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by William Godwin. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.
Clemit, Pamela. (1999). Godwin, Vol. 1 of Lives of the Great Romantics III: Godwin, Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley by Their Contemporaries. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1996). A Simple Story, by Elizabeth Inchbald. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics.
Clemit, Pamela. (1996). Falkner: A Novel, Vol. 7 of Novels and Selected Works of Mary Shelley. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1996). Matilda, Dramas, Reviews & Essays, Prefaces & Notes, Vol. 2 of Novels and Selected Works of Mary Shelley. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1994). St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century, by William Godwin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clemit, Pamela. (1993). Educational and Literary Writings, Vol. 5 of Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1993). The Godwinian Novel: The Rational Fictions of Godwin, Brockden Brown, Mary Shelley. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Clemit, Pamela. (1992). Early Novels, Vol. 2 of Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1992). Fleetwood; or, The New Man of Feeling, Vol. 5 of Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1992). Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century, Vol. 6 of Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1992). St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century, Vol. 4 of Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin. London: Pickering & Chatto.
Clemit, Pamela. (1992). Things As They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, Vol. 3 of Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin. London: Pickering & Chatto.

Books: edited

Clemit, Pamela. (2011). The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the 1790s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clemit, Pamela. (2009). Caleb Williams, by William Godwin. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Edited works: contributions

Clemit, Pamela. (1999). 'Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley'. In Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, Volume 4: 1800-1900. Shattock, Joanne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clemit, Pamela. (1998). 'Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley'. In Literature of the Romantic Period: A Bibliographical Guide. O'Neill, Michael. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 284-297.
Clemit, Pamela. (1996). 'William Godwin'. In Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 121. Kelly, Gary & Applegate, Edd. Detroit: Gale Research Publications. 103-118.

Essays in edited volumes

Clemit, Pamela. (2011). 'Commerce of Luminaries: Eight Holograph Letters between William Godwin and Thomas Wedgwood'. In Godwinian Moments: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Collision of Minds. Maniquis, Robert & Myers, Victoria. Toronto: Toronto University Press. 261-282.
Clemit, Pamela. (2011). 'Godwin's Political Justice'. In The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the 1790s. Clemit, Pamela. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 86-100.
Clemit, Pamela. (2006). 'Holding Proteus: William Godwin in his letters'. In Repossessing the Romantic Past. Glen, Heather & Hamilton, Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 98-115.
Clemit, Pamela. (2003). 'Frankenstein, Matilda, and the legacies of Godwin and Wollstonecraft'. In The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. Schor, Esther. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 26-44.

Journal papers: academic

Clemit, Pamela & McAuley, Jenny. (2011). 'Sociability in Godwin's Diary: The Case of John King'. Bodleian Library Record 24(1): 51-56.

Clemit, Pamela. (2009). '"A Society of their Own": Four Letters from Laura Tighe Galloni d'Istria to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley'. La Questione Romantica NS 1(1): 95-109.

Clemit, Pamela. (2009). 'Readers Respond to Godwin: Romantic Republicanism in Letters'. European Romantic Review 20(5): 699-707.

Clemit, Pamela. (2009). 'William Godwin's Juvenile Library'. Charles Lamb Bulletin NS 147: 90-132.

Clemit, Pamela. (2006). 'Charlotte Smith to William and Mary Jane Godwin: Five Holograph Letters'. Keats-Shelley Journal 55: 29-40.

Clemit, Pamela. (2005). 'Self Analysis as Social Critique: The Autobiographical Writings of Godwin and Rousseau'. Romanticism 11(2): 161-180.

Clemit, Pamela. (2005). 'William Godwin and James Watt's Copying Machine: Wet Transfer Copies in the Abinger Papers'. Bodleian Library Record 18(5): 532-560.

Clemit, Pamela. (2004). 'Godwin, Women, and "The Collision of Mind with Mind" '. Wordsworth Circle 35(2): 72-76.

Clemit, Pamela. (2004). 'William Godwin's Papers in the Abinger Deposit: An Unmapped Country'. Bodleian Library Record 18(3): 253-263.

Clemit, Pamela. (2001). ‘Two Pamphlets on the Regency Crisis by William Godwin’. Enlightenment and Dissent 20: 185-248.

Clemit, Pamela. (2001). 'Philosophical Anarchism in the Schoolroom: William Godwin's Juvenile Library, 1805-25'. Biblion: The Bulletin of the New York Public Library 9(1/2): 44-70.

Clemit, Pamela & Woolls, David. (2001). 'Two New Pamphlets by William Godwin: A Case of Computer-Assisted Authorship Attribution'. Studies in Bibliography 54: 265-284.

Clemit, Pamela. (1999). 'Mary Shelley and William Godwin: A Literary-Political Partnership, 1823-1836'. Women's Writing, Mary Shelley Special Issue 6(3): 285-295.
Clemit, Pamela. (1994). 'Lamb and Godwin's Antonio'. Charles Lamb Bulletin 85: 17-22.
Clemit, Pamela. (1993). 'Godwin's Educational Theory: The Enquirer'. Enlightenment and Dissent 12: 3-11.
Clemit, Pamela. (1993). 'Shelley's Godwin, 1812-1817'. Durham University Journal 85(2): 189-201.
Clemit, Pamela. (1991). 'A Pastoral Romance from the Ancient British: Godwin's Rewriting of Comus'. Eighteenth-Century Fiction 3: 217-239.